


The Dimension

by MadameDeBergerac



Series: The Aravan Saga [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Action/Adventure, Animal Death, Anthropomorphic, Cannibalism, Cats, Dark Fantasy, Gen, Hero's Journey, Inspired by Erin Hunter and Richard Adams but not explicitly based on their works, Soft Apocalypse, Survival Horror, Talking Animals, Wilderness Survival, With additional acknowledgements to Lloyd Alexander and David Clement-Davies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-01-31 10:03:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21444433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameDeBergerac/pseuds/MadameDeBergerac
Summary: To speak the name Aravan is to send a chill down feline spines. It is the name of a barbaric alternate world just below theirs, the dark home of the lost and exiled. No cat of sound mind would dare to venture there…But due to a freak accident, Theo is now stranded there. The young tom will have to use all of his courage and determination if he wants to see home again. But with a demented, cannibalistic tyrant, a plot to topple the Feline Guardian, and a trio of strange queens to dodge, reaching home with a whole skin would be an achievement in and of itself…
Series: The Aravan Saga [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1545994
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Be not afraid of greatness.  
Some are born great,  
Some achieve greatness,  
And some have greatness thrust upon them.  
William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

A final word spoken into unwilling ears. 

A tentative smile, casting the false impression that all is well. 

A pair of gleaming amber eyes shining palely. 

A once-formidable tabby body slumping to the ground… 

Then nothing. Nothing but a wound that could not be seen and that time could not heal. 

It was a nightmare that had been coming for nearly a week. Samara had hoped that one day it would…well, not exactly fade, but someday recede to a point where he didn’t wake up in tears. That he might be able to put it behind him so that it wouldn’t haunt his every waking thought. But tonight…tonight it seemed the universe had other plans.

Outside, piercing the chill air of the brooding violet night, the full moon beamed down coldly. What was it about a full moon that seemed to mock the lowly inhabitants of the world below? That coldly reminded you how insignificant your life is to the ages? That shines down upon you, a lone player in some spoiled kitten’s game, waiting for you to go on, but knowing in its callous heart of hearts that you never will?

(Oh, wonderful—he was so upset he was getting philosophical.)

Not many, four legs or two, would walk into such a bright light willingly–if at all. But tonight, Samara knew that he had no other choice. The small, golden-furred tomcat sat alone in his cavern, listening tentatively to the hushed mewls outside, trying to force back the tremors that would not go away. He could hear them, even though they tried to keep their voices down. “He’s too young”, they whispered. “He’ll never get anywhere without guidance.”

“No, not without his master”, they hissed. “He’ll run the tribe into the ground.” He shivered, wanting nothing more than to run somewhere far away where he couldn’t hear them. But soon, he would have to face them.

Samara looked nervously about him at the quartz crystals that hung from the roof of the cave. Deep greens and radiant blues and purples glimmered darkly in the scant light. Just being here reminded him of what he had to do. Ever since he could remember, the Feline Guardian–lord over the feral cats like himself–had resided here. The last one had been Dionysus Ambereyes, Samara’s own master. The old cat had been a tremendous leader and teacher, the closest thing to a proper father his apprentice had ever had. But no more—he was dead now. Less than seven nights ago, he had passed into the beyond right before Samara’s eyes.

Now Samara was left to rule.

Rule.  The word made the tom’s flesh creep. How could he, an ordinary cat like all others, rule? With the fates and lives of so many on his shoulders…what if he failed? Would he go down in history as the worst Guardian of all times? And if he did, how could show his face here or any place else again?

Samara sighed as heavily as he dared, with everyone outside. Dionysus had been a great ruler, an act he couldn’t possibly hope to top. But…but he would be ashamed if his apprentice turned away from his place. For now, he just had to accept his role. Then, as soon as he was able, he would have to find an apprentice of his own. A young cat who would become a far better leader…

Oh, what was he thinking? Backing out of his responsibilities so quickly? Dionysus would be ashamed of him—for whatever reason, he believed in Samara, plucked him out of the rest of the Tribe with his own paws to teach, and here Samara was thinking of letting him down. What sort of coward would do such a thing? He’d always known this day would come after all. And yet…why did it have to come so soon? He was still young, still relatively inexperienced. Could Samara help that he was scared? He had no idea how to run a Tribe! Sure, Dionysus always said he would learn, that the other cats would show him how to rule, how to say and do exactly what they needed…but he didn’t know. Maybe…maybe he’d wait and see. If he was any good at ruling (now wasn’t that a thought?), he would stay the way he was. If not—if he wasn’t run out of the Tribe first—he could get to work searching for someone to succeed him.

Maybe. He had to actually try  to rule this tribe first. And that thought alone terrified him like no other. His paws trembled beneath him, and he was half-afraid his legs would give way. Best to get this over with before they did…

But no sooner did that thought enter his head than he suddenly felt a horrible throbbing pain in his temples. For a moment, he was afraid he’d been stung, but—

Oh, no. No, not now. They wouldn’t do this to him now. He recoiled from the terrible throb, willing it to just go away and leave him alone, but it wouldn’t. It only got stronger, so strong that his eyes watered and he had to keep from crying out. He had no choice—he had to respond. For weeks he’d been hoping this wouldn’t happen, that he’d never have to face how awful living with these enhanced senses of his would be, but… Samara dragged himself to the nearest quartz outcropping and bent his forehead over it, closing his eyes, imagining the pain flowing out of him like water. Sure enough, the sensation left, replaced by a faint sort of warm glow that emanated from the stone into his own flesh. And when he pulled away, there was the face of another cat in the quartz.

“I’m so sorry.” The words came out of him on instinct.

The cat in the quartz—a longhaired brown queen with a slightly pinched face—regarded him kindly out of striking blue eyes, tinted purple by the stone’s surface. “There is nothing to apologize for, young one. You’ve done nothing wrong.” She looked at him closely, her brilliant eyes narrowing a bit. “You look like you’re in pain.”

Oh, if she only knew. “I just…I’m not adjusting to these new senses as well as I’d thought I would. I can’t hunt without getting distracted by the–the feeling of each blade of grass under my feet or hearing the wind in my ears. It’s never quiet—I can’t imagine how he…” No—the name was still too painful to say.

The brown queen nodded somberly. “I do not know what to tell you, young one; each Guardian adapts differently. I watched your master go through something similar. All I can tell you is that nature is working in you in ways so few cats are privileged to know. Think of it as a gift, not a curse—a gift that will help you rule wisely and attentively. That may help dull the pain.”

Samara nodded, but the mention of Dionysus brought the tears back to his eyes. He couldn’t tell her—he had to keep composure. He’d already made up his mind, and he couldn’t lose his nerve now. Couldn’t let on just how much his heart was breaking…

But she seemed to catch it anyway, and she looked at him intently. “That isn’t all that pains you, is it, young one?”

He sighed again, all his anxiety rising back to the top once again. "Lakshmi, how can I lead this tribe? I have no experience outside of my master’s teachings. How can I cope with–with–” He trailed off, knowing that he sounded like a whining kitten, but unable to articulate his feelings.

Lakshmi nodded again as though she completely understood. "Your heart is not strange to me, young one. You would rather face death than let down those you love. But by shrinking from your duties, you are doing so. The one will come soon, and your heart will rest.“

Oh, for pity’s sake, now was not the time to be speaking in riddles. "What—What are you talking about? Who is the one?”

“The next Guardian.” She said it so plainly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “The one who is strong enough to cross the Dimension alive.”

The Dimension! Its very reference filled the young tom with fear, and he felt himself unconsciously back away from the quartz, ears pinned to his head. "No–no, I can’t make any cat do that! It’d only kill them! Besides, my master told me that the Dimension is sealed away, and that’s the way it should stay!“

“Why did say that?” The innocent curiosity in Lakshmi’s voice actually enraged him for a moment, and Samara couldn’t help but wonder if the old queen wanted that. To distract him from his despair. Or if she was testing him somehow, even before he’d faced his Tribe. In any case, it almost worked, and he had to swallow a fiery gasp of anger before speaking again.

“Because it’s dangerous! It’s a dangerous, lawless place full of cats who don’t care at all about our ways, and if I were to open it back up…” Samara shook his head, unable to even let himself think of it. “I can’t. It—It would be chaos. And even if this… one  did come along, he’d be killed.”

“You can’t know that,” Lakshmi replied, still infuriatingly serene, her blue eyes regarding him sharply enough that he suppressed the urge to squirm. “You’ve given up on this endeavor before even starting it. And do you suppose your master would want you to take him at his word unquestioningly? Never making decisions he might not have made?”

Samara wanted to protest, but the one that came out was weak even to his own ears. “The Feline Guardian keeps our secrets… I have to honor that. I have to trust him.”

“Perhaps you may uncover secrets that he could never have dreamed of.” At last Lakshmi smiled, and her eyes became less sharp, but now they held a note of pity that made Samara feel even smaller. As if he were a kitten again, and this smaller tribe leader had just noticed he barely knew how to crawl. “Dionysus would tell us about you—about how you said you would rather die than let him down. I know you still feel that way, and it does you credit. But you must not let that fear overwhelm you now. Promise me–promise him– that you will find the one.”

Samara let out a shuddering sigh as her words cut through him. She was right—he’d meant those words then, and he’d meant them now. It seemed so long ago, and he suddenly, nonsensically, felt so old. But if he panicked now…out of the question. He had to do this.

He forced a smile he didn’t feel. "I will try, Lakshmi.“

"No, you will not try–you will do.  Promise us that.”

“I promise.”

Lakshmi gave him one last smile, even though her eyes were still sad and pitying, and Samara watched her fade from the quartz until the thousands of miles separating them had swallowed her. Then he turned back to the entrance to the cavern–all the cats gathered there. He swallowed hard, hoping that his fears had gone down, too, and walked out.

At the sight of the apprentice Guardian, the crowd hushed. Samara stood before them feeling smaller than ever. He tried not to remember the countless tribe gatherings Dionysus had held in this very spot and slowly began to address his public.

“Dionysus’s death is… is one of the greatest tragedies we have had to endure. I am sure that every cat mourns him as deeply I do. His wisdom and love for this tribe will be remembered fondly. But he would not want us to linger in the past. As he has passed on, so must we pass into the future.”

He took a deep breath and let the words come:

“And although I still mourn his memory and perhaps always will, he would want me to put aside my own passion for the sake of the Tribe. So it is with a heavy heart that I assume Guardianship. I hope…I hope that his spirit will guide me through what troubles may come.”

As the tribe murmured in wonder and anxiety, Samara closed his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to look at them. The awareness of what had just happened crashed over him like a wave. After tonight, everything he did, it would be for the tribe. His choices, his feelings, his opinions…they no longer mattered.

Only the tribe.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All day long he was docile, intelligent, good  
Though sometimes changing to a darker mood  
He seemed hypocritical, could tell bitter lies  
In the dark he saw dots of color behind closed eyes  
Clenched his fists, put his tongue out at his elder brother...   
\---Arthur Rimbaud, “Seven-year-old Poets"

There was water all around him, a churning cesspool of blue. How had he gotten here? What was happening? He tried to fight the current, but it flowed too hard and fast. Where was it taking him? Swim! That was it—he had to swim! 

A pair of green eyes floated past. They didn’t seem to be attached to anything. They pleaded to him, but he couldn’t follow. What did they want? Then came a blue pair, but they were different. Cold and harsh, a wasteland of ice. Advance and die, they warned. They frightened him. 

As he wafted downward, he saw the bottom, a lumpy ominous monster just waiting for a little kitten corpse to float into its waiting jaws. He winced–soon it would be over. He screwed his eyes shut and bid the world a silent goodbye… 

Suddenly, the river bottom opened. Opened like the mouth of an enormous beast. A blinding white light exploded behind his eyes… 

And he knew no more. 

Theo hadn’t realized he was asleep until he woke up. He started upward and squinted into the midday sun. Theo didn’t usually take naps–they were for nest-kits, he thought–but this had been one of those days. A day when it was so hot and sticky outside that you could barely move, but had to find something to do lest you die of boredom. Unable to think of anything else to do, he had finally plopped down in the entrance of his family’s small cavern and closed his eyes. He vaguely felt his mother, Rhea, stepping over him on her way out to hunt for dinner a while ago. And shortly after, his two sisters, Opora and Rhodie, had joined him just to humor him.

Now, he had awakened in a cold sweat, still feeling the terrible flood from his dream enveloping him. It was truly a horrible dream—a cat’s worst nightmare was to drown, to be swept away from everything, even future lives. And those eyes—what had they meant? Especially those pleading green eyes, so like his own…

Beside him, Opora snored. She was a much heavier sleeper than Theo. He had no intention of waking her now, especially not after… No, she might panic. He rolled heavily over his left side, expecting to feel the press of Rhodie’s thin flank…

But it wasn’t there. Rhodie was gone.

Theo quickly roused himself and sat up. He turned to the snoring Opora and pawed her in the shoulder gently, but firmly. "Opie! Opie, wake up!“ he hissed.

Opora–a thick-furred calico with black tufts on her ears–snorted softly as she returned to consciousness and opened one eye. "Wuzzamattah?” she slurred.

“Rhodie’s gone,” Theo informed her urgently. "She was here a minute ago, and now she’s not.“

Opie rolled groggily into an upright position. "She couldn’t have gone far. We can get her back before Mom comes home.” She stood and stretched the circulation back into her legs; she always took longer to wake up than Theo did. "Let’s go.“

Theo nodded briskly and led the charge out of the cavern. He tried to assure himself that all was well, as Opie had said, but the truth was that no one could tell with Rhodie. Where her siblings were the cautious, unadventurous type, Rhodie… well, Rhodie was something else entirely. A daredevil. It was ironic, really, given that her name was a warning away from the waters and the wilds, but she’d never heeded that warning. Once she had gone so far as to invite a huge Mastiff from the nearby two-leggeds place to their cavern. Rhea, horrified, had forbidden Rhodie to leave their cavern on her own. But neither Theo nor Rhodie had known whom their mother was trying to kid. To Rhodie, the idea that any rules applied to her was ridiculous. She found several opportunities to sneak out.

Just up ahead, beyond the bushes and patches of tall grass and brambles Rhodie turned out not to be hiding in, marked the point beyond which Theo and Opie had never dared to go–a long, rotting jetty (at least that was what they had once heard one of the Two-Legged Folk call it) overgrown with weeds and pond scum. It reached out like a long leg over the rushing river mere feet away. No one went anywhere near it. The danger of drowning was too great, and drowning was a fate worse than any other kind of death to a cat. Drowning swept away a cat’s soul, so that it might never come back to the earth and they would be lost forever.

Not that it had ever scared away Rhodie, naturally. Nothing ever did. And that was precisely what Theo was afraid of.

“Hang on!” he heard Opie’s voice behind him as soon as he’d taken a step in that direction. “Are—Are you sure she’s…?”

“I’m pretty sure. It wouldn’t be the first time.” He looked back at his sister. “You’re coming to look for her, right?”

“Well, yeah, but…” Opie gulped, her ears flattening by degrees the longer she looked out toward the jetty. “I still don’t feel safe getting up close.”

“You can hang back a bit—I’ll get up on the jetty. You don’t have to get close if you don’t want to.”

Both of them approached slowly, their ears full of the sound of rushing water and the odd frog. A few times, Opie actually took a step backward, but Theo would give her his most bracing look before advancing with all the determination he could muster. When they finally reached the jetty, Theo put his paw out to test the wood. It was soft with rot and moss, and the dampness almost made him recoil, but it was still sturdy. He put both of his front legs up on it. So far, so good. Then he lifted up his back legs. Opie gasped behind him, but the wood didn’t give way. All right… he could do this. Nodding both for Opie’s benefit and for his own, he started to tentatively crawl his way forward.

"Do you see her?” Opie hissed up to him once he had ventured halfway along the jetty’s length. It was as far as he dared to go. Any farther, and his muscles would seize up with fear and his whiskers would fray. And Opie might scream, which would give them away to any hiding kittens.

Theo scanned the waterfront. Nothing but rapids and the occasional chunk of debris from other unused jetties. "Nope. She’s not out here.“

Opie heaved a sigh of relief. "All right. Let’s search around back of the cavern, and then call it. It’s getting late.”

Just as Theo was about to agree, he heard a high-pitched shriek. He started violently, his fur standing on end. "Rhodie?“

Another shriek came, followed by "Theo, help me!” 

It was her, all right– and she was in trouble. "I’m coming, Rhodie, I’m coming!“ he yowled desperately as he leaped from the jetty and raced down toward the riverbed—so close to the forbidden river, close enough to feel it lapping at his toes– as fast as his legs could carry him…

Only to be pulled backward hard by the tail. Theo cried out in surprise and horrible pain and turned to survey the damage to his throbbing backside… and there was Rhodie. Crouched beneath the jetty, safe and sound, rolling in the sand with hysterical laughter. "Oh my…Oh, you shoulda seen the look on your face!” she guffawed, much to Theo’s outrage.

“It’s not funny!” Theo retorted fiercely, bristling. "We thought you were hurt! You could have drowned out here!“ His spine still throbbed from her yank–time after time after time, he thought he’d told her to cut that out.

"What, you think I’m that stupid?” Rhodie swept her tail across her heart, pretending to look injured. "Have a little faith in your little sister, Theo.“

Theo rolled his eyes. Sometimes he had to seriously doubt that they were related at all. They were as different as winter and summer–the long-haired, tawny-colored, cautious Theo and the lanky, black, freewheeling Rhodie. The only trouble was, he couldn’t decide which one of them had to be adopted. If Rhodie was, he had to worry about his mother a bit. He peered around the jetty’s rickety legs and called upward: "OPIE! She’s down here! And she’s perfectly fine!”

Opie groaned loudly and jumped down to join them. Rhodie’s eyes lit up at her extended audience, but her sister was not at all amused. "Don’t ever do that again, Rhodie! Now, come on– we gotta get you inside before Mom gets back.“

To no one’s surprise, Rhodie wasn’t listening. Apparently growing bored with the two of them and sensing she wasn’t going to get her way, she had taken to staring out at the river with an intrigued expression. Theo knew that look. The river was Rhodie’s anchor—every time she snuck outside, it always seemed to pull her in its direction. The number of reprimands she was given to stay away did no good. And now, Theo could see she was about to become very vocal with her curiosity.

Three, two, one… 

"Where do you think that river goes to?” she mused aloud.

Theo rolled his eyes. "Who cares where it goes? Mom said to keep away from the river, end of story.“

"The cats who swim in it never come back”, Opie added ominously. “Even if they manage not to drown.”

Rhodie made a scathing noise in her throat. "Is that what happened to our Dad?“ she spat.

Opie stiffened visibly. Their father was a very sensitive topic, and Theo could very vividly tell that a nerve had been touched… he was old enough not to remember, but Opie wasn’t. "Dad is the reason we keep away from the river, and unless you want to end up like him, you will too.”

“Is that what Mom told you?” Rhodie retorted testily. "Is that another one of her excuses not to tell us what happened?”

“Rhodie–!” Theo warned.

“I’m sick of all these secrets!” the black kitten exclaimed, in the same tone as if she’d just been told she couldn’t have a whole wolf for dinner. “I wanna know what happened to Dad, and if Mom’s not gonna tell us, then I’m gonna–”

“Find out yourself, we know,” Theo finished. She threatened this all the time, but never made good on it. "Well, anytime you wanna drown, you let us know. Now let’s go home.“

"I’m not finished–” Rhodie began.

“Well, we are”, he cut her off. And he turned to leave, Opie at his heels. After a moment of muttering irritably under her breath, their youngest sister did, too. Theo smiled smugly to himself. Somebody had to be the big brother in this family, and as self-congratulatory as it sounded, he couldn’t think of anyone better than himself.

Rhodie kept quiet for the rest of that evening. When Rhea returned from hunting with a small rabbit in her jaws, she immediately took in the sight of her brooding youngest and looked at Theo askance.

“Oh…she’s just mad that we wouldn’t let her play by the jetty”, Theo replied. Which was the truth.

“I’m right here, you know,” said little sister, growled, glaring in his direction from where she sat in the corner of the cavern.

But Rhea—a stocky queen from whom her son had inherited his colors and her second daughter her temperament—only nodded. “Hmm.” Her whiskers quivered a bit and her eyes clouded a shade, but other than that she said nothing as she laid the rabbit down on the floor. “Theo, would you help me skin this, please?”

He nodded, standing to join her. Behind him, Opie rose from the cavern entrance and tried to sit next to Rhodie, but she pointedly turned her back on both of them, suddenly becoming very interested in cleaning her front paws and taking a moment to stick her tongue out at Theo like he was something diseased caught in her throat. Theo merely put his tongue out at her in return. If he wanted to be immature, he could be immature right back.

Rhea just sighed, already scratching away at the fur on the rabbit’s belly. “Theo, dear…I know it’s hard, but you’ve got to help keep a better eye on Rhodie.” Her voice was much softer now, clearly not wanting her daughters to overhear.

“It’s not my fault she keeps sneaking off every time I turn my back!” he retorted, setting to work on the rabbit’s back.

“I know. But you know how she is—she’d sooner listen to someone closer to her own age than me.”

Theo just scowled. She clearly had no idea what it was like when she was out hunting—how Rhodie would constantly run away and talk back and not give him (or Opie, for that matter) any respect. “She never listens to me.”

“She knows you try to keep her at paw’s length,” Rhea replied, casting aside a strip of pelt. “She knows she scares you—both of you. And believe me, I know how you feel. But you’ve got to try to understand her, let her know you care. Spend a little more time with her, is all I’m asking. She’s your sister, after all, and as the oldest I’m counting on you to be there for her when I can’t.”

“I’m trying.”  Taking out his frustration on the rabbit’s stupid fuzzy tail was easier, so Theo began to shred it to get to the brown beneath.

“I know you are. And I appreciate it. But Rhodie’s at a difficult age. You and Opie were the same way.”

“No, I wasn’t. Not that bad.” He refused to believe that. No one could be as bad as Rhodie. And he especially couldn’t believe it of Opie, who was shy and retiring almost to a fault.

“No, but you could still be a little chaos-stirrer when you wanted to be.” Rhea gave him a tight little smile through another mouthful of discard pelt before setting that aside, too. “And she’ll grow out of it, too, eventually. I’m just asking you to be there in the meantime. And for pity’s sake, try to keep her away from the river, I’ve told her several times—“

“I know, but she keeps going out there. And then we have to chase after her, and one of these days someone’s going to fall. Then she’ll be sorry.”

“Well, you should all know better.” This time it sounded like a proper scold as she sank her claws into the rabbit’s sides. “That place is dangerous; I don’t know why the Guardian doesn’t have it blocked off somehow. Too many cats have… disappeared there.”

Theo ignored Rhodie’s disparaging snort and Opie’s reproach (“Rhodie! Shape up, will you?” ) and looked at his mother strangely. "What do you mean ‘disappeared’?“ Why not simply say they had drowned or died? And that pause, as if she’d had to consider what to say.

At this, Rhea suddenly looked very tired. "Never mind, dear. Just help me finish up here, please.”

The rest of the skinning went by in silence, and once the rabbit had been reduced to meat with no scraps of fur to get stuck in their teeth, Theo noticed how thin it really was. And a stab of guilt rushed through him—his mother was usually a much better hunter than this, maybe she wasn’t feeling well… he should have been there with her. Instead of chasing after Rhodie and bringing up painful and confusing memories that only made everyone feel worse. Keeping everyone fed was so much more important than petty things like that… but if Rhea wanted him to be out there with his sisters… 

He felt her bending to nuzzle his ear before calling out, “Rhodie, Opora—dinner! Help your brother portion it out, won’t you? That way we can make it last a while longer.” Then she retired to the back chamber used as a bedroom, not taking anything for herself.

Theo sunk his teeth into the rabbit’s front legs, tearing them off at the joints with a mighty snap of his jaws for Rhodie and Opie to share and absentmindedly reminding them to share, but his mind was not on the meat. He thought for a moment to take something back for their mother, but no doubt she was probably already asleep. It had turned into such an awful day, and he couldn’t help feeling that it was somehow his fault. There wasn’t enough of him to keep all of his family company and stop them all from getting into trouble… and there was still Rhea’s choice of words nagging at him.  Disappeared  … disappeared how? Maybe he was overthinking it—maybe she did simply mean drowned or died. But everything about the river… about what had happened there… it was already so vague.

Dragging his own meager haunch to the other end of the cavern, where there was still fresh evening air streaming in, he looked past the exit out to where the river was barely visible. This was all so… silly. So overblown. It looked like any other river in the world—

Wait. No. What was that? It almost looked for a moment–how could this be?–the rapids were moving in opposite directions. But that was impossible, wasn’t it? Water simply didn’t flow that way, he knew that… he blinked once, as if to make the strange vision go away. But it didn’t– two sets of raging waves converging on a single spot, where they seemed to be sucked under the ground. The sight was… well, it was startling, to say the least. What was going  on  with the river…?

Oh, what am I talking about?!  Theo shook his head firmly, forcing himself to get a grip. Had he turned into Opie, seeing ghosts and werecats around every corner? This was ridiculous.

“Get your head out of the clouds, Theo”, he softly scolded himself. And he continued to devour his share of stringy rabbit in peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone wondering how the name "Rhodie" fits into the theme-naming thus far, "Rhodie" is a nickname for "Rhode", the name of a sea-nymph and goddess of the island of Rhodes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For plainly this miscreant had sold himself to Satan, and it  
would be fatal to meddle with the property of such a power as that.   
\---Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

This rabbit didn’t stand half a chance. This one was so much fatter and juicier than the piddly little one from last night’s dinner… this one they could feast on for a very long time. Theo was upon it before it had even thought to turn its head, and with a well-placed snap of his jaws, it drooped lifelessly in his teeth. A thrill of triumph rushed through him– he couldn’t wait to see Opie’s face when he returned with this. The two of them had been chasing this particular rabbit for moons, and it had proved very elusive ever since they’d torn up its nest. Weighed down with his trophy, but lightened with a sense of conquest, he merrily trotted back into the clearing here his mother and sisters were.

“Opie!” he called. “Opie, look what I–” But when he looked around, she was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Rhodie, for that matter. Surprise, surprise. "Where’s Opie?“ he asked of his mother.

Rhea turned to face him from the clump of weeds she’d been peering into. "Oh, she went off that way,” she replied, waving her tail vaguely to her left. "She said something about a rabbit.“

Theo couldn’t help beaming. "When she comes back–” he proudly dumped his prize at Rhea’s feet–“tell her I caught it for her.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Sinking to her haunches, she thoroughly appraised the fresh prey, sniffing from its head to its tail, and nodded her approval. "We’ll make a feast out of this. Now, Rhodie, dear–“ When she sat up, she noticed that her youngest had gone. "Rhodie?”

Before Theo had much time to even begin to panic—or more likely, make some snarky comment about her hiding out to yank on his tail again somewhere—there was a little sigh on the hill above them, and a petite black form trudged forth. "I found a mouse, but it ran off.“ Her voice was completely devoid of energy.

Rhea’s teeth chattered lightly in reproach. "Oh, Rhodie, you know a mouse won’t be good for anything but a snack. We need to find dinner for tonight.”

“Nothing to find. Besides, we’ve got the rabbit.” Theo frowned at this. Who was this listless creature, and what had it done with his sister? Normally, Rhodie was more eager for a good hunt than the rest of them combined, all flash and fire, ready to pounce on a fox if it dared show itself.

“What do you mean, ‘nothing to find’? There’s plenty of prey, you simply have to know where to look.” And to illustrate her point, Rhea promptly descended on a pile of dead grass in front of her and clawed violently at it. Theo watched her in admiration– his mother really was the best hunter he knew, her instincts far sharper than his. She’d struck on something, he knew. And sure enough, out of the tiny crater she’d dug scurried a family of voles. Six fuzzy brown bodies rushed feverishly into the grass. “There!” She looked up at Rhodie. "Help me catch them?“

Rhodie gave a halfhearted shrug, but ran after her mother into the bushes all the same. Theo stood for a moment, watching them go, then began to ascend to the hill Rhodie had been sitting on earlier. What was wrong with her? She wasn’t still upset about yesterday, was she? Or maybe she was just tired. Yes, that was it. She was tired and came up get her second or third wind–

No. It was still about yesterday. Of course she was. Overlooking the hill’s summit, Theo couldn’t help but give a small growl of frustration, not just at her, but at himself. Rhea had just offered her what looked like a great little game, and she was still holding her stupid grudge. What was wrong with her sometimes, he wondered bitterly… and why couldn’t he fix it?

From where he sat, he had a perfect view of the river. Rushing wildly, twin currents raging. He blinked once the sight had sunk in. So he hadn’t been seeing things yesterday…

Stop it, Theo. Let it go. If you’re not careful, you’ll be as bad as she is. You’re supposed to set an example for her. It’s just a stupid river. Grow up.  And Rhodie needed to grow up too. It wasn’t a healthy thing, her wanting to know these things…

And don’t think about that dream. The dream with the eyes… no. Just don’t. 

"Theo?”

Out of a low patch of scrub farther up the clearing, Opie emerged with a lump of feathers in her mouth, somewhat downtrodden by her weak capture. "Did you– No!“  Her eyes caught the rabbit at the foot of the hill, and she ran up to it, nosing it excitedly. "How’d you find this– I’ve been hunting for it for moons! Geez–” She looked up at her brother with shining eyes. "You have all the luck!“

"Yeah.” Theo barely glanced at it, all feeling of conquest lost. He barely even registered Opie’s presence beside him as she climbed the hill and sat down, tail tucked neatly around her paws.

“Where’s Mom?” she asked after a moment.

“Off with Rhodie.”

“Mmm.”

“She didn’t even feel like hunting this morning.”

Opie’s pale eyes darkened with worry. "Well, that’s weird, how come?“

"She’s still upset about yesterday.” He clawed irritably at a blade of grass tickling his pad. "Still thinking about the river.“ Again, a trickle of frustration soured his tongue. Some big brother he was, letting his little sister become fixated like this. They were supposed to be a sensible family who wanted sensible things and didn’t go running off after weird rivers and ask questions about things that just scratched at old wounds. When Opie said nothing at first, he didn’t mind.

But when she spoke… "Did you ever think that… maybe she’s right?”

This time he minded very much, giving her a look of disbelieving horror. "You too?“

"I’m just saying… all these cats disappearing–”

There was that word again. “What do you mean 'disappearing’?”

“Think about it. We live where’s there’s more prey than anywhere around us, and yet it’s like we’re completely alone. And the cats who were here– haven’t you heard? Europa from across the path tried to go fishing two moons ago, and she never came back. And her kits tried to go after her– they’re gone, too.”

“Europa wasn’t exactly–”

“It isn’t just her, Theo!” Her voice was pleading and desperate. "You remember that friend I had, Zephyr? He went missing a few days ago, I only heard by mistake. All these cats, Theo, they go near the river and they just vanish. We’re the only ones around here now. And– And our dad–“

"Our dad drowned, Opie! You know that, and so does Rhodie! Cats just drown!” With a completely unbidden shudder, he thought of the eyes again… green, like his… No, stop it! “That’s bad enough without anyone making up some kind of… crazy story about it to make it sound worse.”

“Everyone around us, one by one, and their bodies are never washed up?”

“They could be someplace farther up the river.”

“Wouldn’t we still know about it?”

“Not necessarily!”

He hoped with a vehemence that surprised him that that would be the end of it. In the pause, Opie’s mouth open and shut in vain, trying to reach words to make him understand. He didn’t want to understand. Finally, she said, “Look… I know you don’t believe me… and I don’t know if I completely believe it either, but I am telling you, there is something strange going on with the river.”

“And I’m telling you to forget it. We stay away from it, end of story. Now are you going to help me hunt or not?” Theo finished, standing.

At that moment, to his utter relief, a squirrel bounding overhead provided the perfect subject change. His tail waved in anticipation, but before he could move toward it, Opie bounded forward with a cry of “I’ve got this one!”

“Hey, that’s not fair—you can’t go back with just a squirrel!”

“Well, you already caught something!“ And with that, she was gone.

Theo listened to her rustling progress through the undergrowth, then laid flat against the grass, head on his paws, suddenly tired. When would this all end? Rhodie and Opie and the river and his weird dreams… when would they stop? He supposed he wouldn’t have minded so much if there weren’t so many secrets! Of course, secrets were commonplace in a cat’s life. Indeed, the more secrets a cat had, the more they were respected. It was part of what made the Feline Guardian what they was—their sense of mystery. In that respect, sometimes Rhea would give him a challenge. Well, it may have been convention, but it was infuriating. Theo longed for something simple. Was that too much to ask– a simple river, a simple mother, simple sisters who respected their older brother…

A blue jay twittered on a branch above him, and Theo raised his head to look at it. No, too small, Rhea would just throw it out. Where was Rhea, anyhow? He glanced out toward the river…

And saw her perched on the bank, frantically pacing the edge, head disappearing several times under the rapids. What in the world—he started to charge down the hill, about to yell for her to be careful. But when his mother withdrew her head from the water the last time, she clutched a sopping-wet, completely immobile Rhodie in her teeth.

No.  "Opie!”  He raced toward them, heart barely daring to beat, every paw pounding with cold fear. “Opie, Rhodie fell in the river! Opie!” It had finally happened… somehow, he didn’t think he’d be this horrified when it did…

She was beside him in seconds, and they had joined Rhea in half that time. Their mother crouched beside her youngest, front paws on Rhodie’s chest, kneading and pumping water from her little lungs and licking frantically at her nose and mouth like she was a newborn kit who hadn’t cried yet. Still, she didn’t move.

“Is she–”

“I don’t know yet.” Bending her head, Rhea feverishly licked Rhodie’s eyes, her nose, her mouth, her ears, over and over until the fur was matted and raw. "Come on, darling, please… please speak to me.“

Then Rhodie’s eyes snapped open and she began to cough violently, heaving water into the grass, her entire form shivering with chill and shock. "I–I–”

“Rhodie!”  Opie was the first to react. "What happened? Are you okay? Say something that tells us you’re okay!“

"I–I–I saw eyes…” 

Theo froze, every word congealed in his throat.

“Eyes… blue… mean… trying to… who has… ” And she broke off with another wheezing cough.

“Oh, no… she’s delirious—you two get back, give her some air.” Eyes wild with worry, Rhea lifted Rhodie again by the scruff of the neck, prompting only the faintest groan from the kitten. "Come along, dear, we have to get you dry and something in your stomach. Theo, Opie—let’s go.“ And she made her way back to the cavern, rapidly picking her way through the thickets and tall grass, Opie loping anxiously at her heels. Only Theo remained where he was, too overcome with what he had heard.

Rhodie was right. Opie was right.

They all were. And he hated it… and he hated himself for how much that scared him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wild men who caught and sang the sun in its flight  
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way  
Do not go gentle into that good night.   
\---Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Rhodie slept fitfully that night, but she was the only one who slept at all. Rhea sat vigil beside her youngest, nodding occasionally but otherwise alert. Opie tossed and turned endlessly, waking up several times in sweat-drenched anxiety.

Theo gave up trying to sleep and wandered out to the entrance of the cavern, nerves thoroughly frayed. Beyond him rushed the horrible twin streams of the river. Not simple anymore. A bogey in all of their dreams.

He thought of the eyes Rhodie had seen, that he’d seen in his dream. Blue eyes. He remembered the green, but not the… wait. Yes, he did. Blue and forbidding like chips of ice, daring him onward to a watery death. Were they the same ones Rhodie had seen? Did they belong to some poor soul– some poor angry soul, granted– who’d been pulled away by the river? Had the owner of the green pair done the same? Suddenly, he wondered how many others he might have seen had he dreamed for longer. Other eyes, other cats…

But no. The river wasn’t just some burial ground for drowned cats. It didn’t just bury them, it devoured them. He remembered Opie—she said their bodies were never washed up. But cats didn’t just disappear for no reason. Everything happened for a reason. So where had they gone?

Theo glanced back inside the cavern to where everyone was trying to sleep. Opie woke up panting for the seventh time, then rolled fitfully onto her side. Rhea was lifting her chin off of her chest with effort. He wondered if he should go over and try to help, but what could he possibly do? Rhodie still slept.

Rhodie had been curious. That was why this had happened to her. The other cats had been curious, too, he supposed. In that sense, Rhodie was luckier than them. At least she was still here.

But what about the others…

He wondered if anyone else knew. It was a long shot, isolated as they were… but what about the Feline Guardian? Yes, he had to know! Of course, the new one was young and not quite experienced enough, but he would care if several of his subjects went missing. Maybe Theo could…

No, he’d be laughed away. Where was his proof?

He looked back out at the river.

Where indeed.

Everything happened for a reason…

No, no, no, what was he thinking?  He couldn’t.  Theo could kick himself for such thoughts. It was too dangerous. He might never come back. He would certainly be lost somehow if he did, his soul swept violently away with the tide. What would Rhea and his sisters do without him? He had everything to lose, just to prove a stupid hunch.

Maybe it was nothing. The more he told himself that, the more he might believe it. Maybe it was just a river. Maybe those cats were just too stupid to know to keep away. Maybe, stupid as they were, they deserved to–

No. No no no. No one deserved that. No one was stupid enough.

Then what if…

All he would be doing was checking along the riverbanks. If any bodies had washed up along the way, they couldn’t be carried very far. That was the far safer option… he didn’t have to get any closer to the river than he needed to. Stick to dry land, that was it. And if he needed to go further… it would be like fishing, wouldn’t it? Much more gruesome than fishing, but it was a similar principle. He was good at fishing. This… had the potential, at least, to be easier than he was making it out to be. It would be fine. He would be fine.

It was all for a good cause, too, right? To discover the truth? To put his family’s fears to rest? That was part of looking out for them, of fulfilling his duty… that was worth the risk.

Well, if he was going to do it, he had to do it now. Otherwise, he’d lose his nerve. He had to do this. He had to find out who was right. If he was wrong, no harm done. If he was right…

Before anything resembling courage could desert him, Theo took one step towards the riverbank. Then another. And another. One foot in front of the other, you can do it, Theo… 

Until he was looking down into its depths. In the darkness, the water was opaque and black.

It was a moment before he could hear the faint pawsteps behind him. "Theo!“ came a hiss in Opie’s voice. "Theo, what are you doing?!”

“I’m putting an end to this,” he heard himself say as he stood looking down. “Just go back to sleep, Opie, it’s okay…”

“Theo, don’t!”  Opie tiptoed closer. "Theo, come on, it’s too dangerous! Come back inside!“

He didn’t reply. He dipped a paw into the water and immediately withdrew it. It was so much colder than it looked. Maybe if he waited…

"Theo!”  Opie insisted still. "At the very least, you could get caught out here, and at the most–“

"Nothing’s going to happen to me, Opie,” he assured himself as much as her. “I’ll get wet, that’s all. Maybe I’ll have to swim a bit.”

“No! I don’t like this, it’s bad enough that Rhodie–”

“It’s not gonna be like Rhodie! I promise it’s fine! Just go back inside and keep Mom company, it’s okay!”

No, he couldn’t afford wait. If he was going to do this, he had to do it now. He dipped in a paw, half-expecting to feel the icy touch of death…

But instead felt water. Just water. He went limp with relief and put both front feet down. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, if he was just careful…

“Theo–”

“I’m okay, see? Nothing happened.” He lowered his back paws into the water. “Now, tomorrow we can both tell Rhodie–”

The wave came out of nowhere. Theo didn’t even have time to panic. Suddenly, foaming, freezing white currents were pounding at his defenseless paws. A fierce blow from somewhere within the river’s depths knocked him off his feet and began to carry him away.

“THEO!”  Opie raced down the bank, sprinting to follow him, looking sick with fear.

“I’m fine!” But he knew very well that he wasn’t. Panic finally set in as he groped wildly at the grass, grabbed at nothing, and felt the river’s frigid jaws nearly chew off his tail. Another cold wave consumed him and sent him face-first into the swell. Horrified, he tried to swim back up, but his paws were clumsy blocks of ice…

Then, at last, Theo saw some light. He surfaced with a gasp and managed to yell “Get–!”

And he sank like a stone again. But he refused to stay down.

“Get–” He had seconds between the ripples that threatened to push him down. “Get–” Theo gasped with all his strength. “Get Mom!” 

And with that last frantic scream, as he caught a glimpse of Opie sprinting off to do as she was told, he went well and truly under. Foam churned about his ears as he struggled in vain, thrashing impotently against the swirling rapids.

As he began to lose sight of the surface, everything went still. No roaring, no spray of white. Just still. As if the river was already offering up his final resting place. He wondered if he would see the eyes… if the river bottom would open and devour him in a flare of light…

They didn’t happen. Nothing did. Not one pinprick of light.

Theo wafted down, and he found himself wondering bleakly what the point had been.

Then everything went black.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He had come to know quite thoroughly the world in which he lived. His outlook   
was bleak and materialistic. The world as he saw it was a fierce and brutal world, a   
world without warmth, a world in which caresses and affection and the bright   
sweetness of spirit did not exist.   
\--- Jack London, White Fang 

Thalia could hardly remember there being prey in Aravan. Actual prey, like rabbits and birds. She was fairly sure there had been, at one point, because one of her fondest memories-- although she wasn't quite sure how much of it was just her imagination-- concerned birds. A sparrow, to be exact, hanging from her narrow kitten jaws. It was very vague, but she could remember how proud she had been.

What felt like a lifetime later as she crouched in the flaky low-lying scrub by the only stream within miles, Thalia missed that sparrow.

All that remained now where she supposed should be fish and plump mice were... other cats.

And... well... a cat had to eat. Especially when she had three young friends to feed as well as herself. In the absence of "hunting" in the truest sense, there was scavenging for whatever washed up the stream. And lately, what were washing up were other cats. All of them drowned.

It had all started about a sun-turn ago, when the really cold windstorms had begun to set in. Every few weeks, a chill rush of air would blast over the barren fields and dead, brown-leaved forests of Aravan, stirring up dirt and refuse. The first time it happened, Thalia and her friends had to burrow deep within the tall grass and huddle together for warmth, praying for it to stop. When it finally did, and one of them complained about being hungry, Thalia offered at once to find something for her. Of course, she hadn't known who she was fooling-- what was there to find in this wasteland?

When she reached the stream, which was more of a small trickle of leftover dew flowing down from the hills, she found a tawny longhaired cat slumped halfway out of the water, tongue lolling uselessly. Thalia tried nosing it and calling out to it, but it was no use. It was dead.

The cat had obviously been there for a long time; no one had come looking for it. She'd mused how awful it was that it had to lay out here exposed to the elements. Drowning was one thing, but becoming food to carrion flies was another. Though she couldn't understand how it had drowned-- the stream wasn't that deep...

She suddenly thought of her friends, waiting for something to sustain them for the night, and looked at the cat in a new light. Perhaps... meat was meat... and she couldn't let it go to waste.

Thoroughly disgusted with this new low, she dragged the cat back to their hiding place. Her friends ate ravenously, unable to discriminate over the sound of their growling stomachs, but Thalia hadn't touched a thing. Hungry as she was, the thought of actually eating another cat might have made her throw up.

The week after that, another wind blew through, forcing them into the woods. Thalia went out again and found another drowned cat wash up. This, too, she dragged back for their dinner, and this time she was tempted to eat just a little bit. This time her hunger was louder than her repulsion, and she ate with gusto. Meat was for eating, after all.

This sick process repeated time after time. The winds blew through, and a cat appeared as if by some weird miracle to sate them until the next time. Thalia learned the cycle quickly, and her scruples chipped away little by little with each scavenging. Or finding, anyway-- Thalia hated the word scavenging. After a time, she learned to depend on what the stream and the winds would provide.

And today was no different. Another frigid gale had ripped through the forests this morning, and now, as Thalia watched, a new cat was borne to the bank of the stream. Little waves lapped at its tail, as if trying to apologize for what some bigger brother of theirs had done.

Without a moment's hesitation and second glance at the newest offering, Thalia hauled it out by the scruff of the neck onto the dry ground and across the rock. Chow time.

Whatever it had once been like, Aravan was a wild place now. And that was the way of the wild. Eat or be eaten. Every cat for herself.

Calliope was waiting for her under the stone outcropping that had served as the morning's shelter, polishing her paws and legs with her tongue. She was a few months younger than Thalia and built like her in shape, leggy and stick-thin, but with white fur speckled with ginger rather than dull grayish-blue. When she saw Thalia appear with the day's catch, her head immediately snapped up, and her eyes glittered eagerly. But as she took a closer look at the cat, it quickly turned to a look of horror. "Oh, my... Thalia, look-look at him--!"

Thalia rolled her eyes. How like Calliope to get weepy over dinner when she hadn't the past twenty times. "It's food, Calliope. It's the best we've ever been able to do, and you know that. Now help me get the fur off."

"I know but..." Crouching next to the cat, Calliope scented his fur quickly and shook her head in consternation. "Gosh, he's so young. He looks like he could be my age. I don't know..."

She wasn't going to listen to this. "Call Terpsichore in," Thalia ordered. "She needs to eat at least-- she's been losing weight."

After casting a pleading look at her that went unanswered, Calliope did as she was told. In a few moments, a tiny lilac-brown kitten with folded ears appeared over the rocks. Thalia would never admit to anyone, but she had always been envious of Terpsichore, she was so young and dainty. And she still had the pillows of kitten fat around her face and paws that had long since melted away from herself and Calliope. In the very very back of her mind, Thalia wished she still looked like that... if indeed she ever had.

All that affection went away instantly when Terpsichore took one look at the dead cat and shook her head vehemently, eyes wide. "I'm not going to eat that."

"Oh,  come on--"

"Thalia, I can't! He looks so much--"

For pity's sake.  "He's dinner!  He's no different from any of the other cats I've brought back. And unfortunately, that's all there is to eat. We can't turn anything away just because it's too cute or something like that."

"What about birds? And rabbits and squirrels?"

"There aren't any, Terpsichore! If there ever were, they're dead! We’re not going through this again, you two, just let it go--"

"But you talk about them all the time! Why would you talk about them if there aren’t any?"

She had no immediate response for that. She knew why Terpsichore asked, and it ached in her like a broken rib. There was a hunger in all of them, a hunger Aravan couldn’t seem to satisfy. Even if it was all they’d known, having nursed on that lean desperation like milk… which Thalia realized with a pang she’d also forgotten the taste of. That was what this place did to you. That was a fact of life. Hating herself for having raised her friend's hopes so unfairly, she opened her mouth to say more—

"Hey, you two?" Calliope spoke up, still beside the dead cat. "Hey, um... no one's eating this one."

Terpsichore looked alarmed. Thalia looked up at once. "Why, what's wrong with him?"

"Well, it's not..." She gave a weak little laugh. "It's not so much what's wrong with him. He's still... He's still alive."

No sooner had this statement left her mouth than the cat's eyes fluttered open.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The python dropped his head lightly for a moment on   
Mowgli's shoulders. "A brave heart and a courteous tongue.   
They shall carry thee far through the jungle, manling. But   
now go hence quickly with thy friends."   
\--- Rudyard Kipling,  The Jungle Book 

Theo came to with a pounding headache behind his eyes. He tried to open them, but they only gave way by a fraction of an inch. He felt musky air above him and stone below him, and their darkness just made his brain even fuzzier. What had happened…?

Oh. Right. The river. Opie running to get their mother. Him wanting to find out the truth. What a stupid idea.

His eyelids opened by fits and starts, and before long he could see the bright outlines of three cats standing over him. One came closer as the other drew away. Must be Rhodie, Opie, and Rhea. Rhodie had better have something to say for herself once he got up—

Wait. No.

The world came a little more into focus, and Theo’s breath caught.

He didn’t know these cats.

Pale light streamed through the cracks in the rock. He didn’t know it, either. Toward the back of it, a skinny blue queen’s eyes popped as if in fear and muttered to her calico companion, “What’re we supposed to do?”

“‘We’?” the calico hissed in response. "He was your catch, you talk to him!“

"What am I gonna say– 'sorry I almost ate you’?!” Theo fervently hoped that last was just a figment of his delirium.

“Hey, are you okay?” This was a new voice, addressing him directly. The tiny lilac kitten who’d approached him just moments before was crouching down over him and watching him intently, as if afraid he’d pass out again. Theo had no such intention, not here; he forced his eyes the rest of the way open and tried to rise to his haunches, but his muscles would not obey. His tongue was useless jelly in his mouth, but after a few attempts he forced out the words…

“Where–Where am I?”

The calico let out a breathless little laugh before catching herself in embarrassment. “What…” She cleared her throat. "What do you mean, where are you? You’re here. In the cavern by the woods.“

"Thalia found you in the stream and saved you,” the little lilac one added helpfully.

Stream?  "No…“ He forced himself to sit up. "There was no stream…” It was a river, a river with twin currents that sucked cats down to parts unknown…

The thought froze in him.

Oh no…

No no no.

Struggle wasn’t an issue now as Theo stood with a strength he didn’t know he had and ran to the entrance of the cavern. Which wasn’t even much of a cavern– more like a lean-to against a pile of rocks. The landscape that greeted him was completely unfamiliar. Gone were rolling hills and thick green vegetation; in their place were bare plains and skeletal bushes and trees scratching at the air like naked claws. He couldn’t see his cave. He couldn’t see any water at all. And he couldn’t be upstream because no place he’d ever heard of was so wasted. What awful field had he washed up into…

“Where am I?” he said again to himself, horror growing in him like a tumor.

The river. He had to find the river. It had brought him here; with any luck at all, it would take him back. He realized as he thought it how ridiculous his reasoning was, but it was his only hope. Before he could change his mind or think too hard, Theo bounded off, following his ears. If he could just hear the rush of water…

Less than a minute later, two other sets of pawsteps pounded after him. "Wait!“ one of the queens called out breathlessly, trying to catch up. Theo payed the call no mind, but put on a burst of speed. There was no telling what they’d want from him in this place… this savage wasteland with no wind…

Then he stopped. A whispering gurgle reached his ears. It was so faint, but it was there. A quick taste of the air through open jaws and upturned nose confirmed it. The water smell tickled his nose and sent a chill through him. He was close. He had to be. He’d be home soon. Hoping against all logic, he followed the smell.

And he stopped.

No. No, no.

No river rushed up to meet him. No twin set of rapids appeared to usher him back the way he’d come. The logic he’d ignored was jeering at him, I told you it was impossible, you idiot. 

A little stream. Just as the lilac kitten had said. A sorry excuse for a creek, feebly lapping at its shallow banks, barely deep enough for a mouse to drown in. The river he knew would have laughed at it.

Theo had been willing to drown to get home.

Now, he couldn’t.

Suddenly, the new, strange wind felt colder.

He looked up again at where he’d landed, despair subduing him until that was all he could do– look. He took in everything around him with cold detachment, as if his eyes were no longer his own. The parched brown plains, the streambed that ran dry even as the stream passed by… Theo frowned. No place he’d ever known was like this, no place he’d ever heard of. It seemed entirely devoid of life, except for these three queens. It was like a whole other world…

What was this place?

Behind him, he could hear two of the queens speaking in urgent whispers. "How does he not know where he is?”

“Thalia… I don’t think he’s from around here.”

“What do you mean? Where else could he be from?”

Here the other cat—the calico—lowered her voice. "He could be from the other place.“

"What?”

“You know… the other place.” 

“How do we know?”

“Well, ask him where he’s from!”

“Hey, kit, where– where are you from?” Thalia’s voice was uncertain, as if she hadn’t spoken to any other cats in a long time.

The word came to Theo instinctively, as if whispered to him from his very blood… “Earth.”

“Is that it?” Thalia again.

“Could be. Maybe that’s what they call it.”

“Then what do they call this place?”

Theo knew in an instant; the realization didn’t scare him as much as it should have.

The Dimension. A place of lost cats, of doomed cats. Of exiles forbidden from returning to their tribes in punishment for their crimes. Of death. He’d heard so many stories, none of them good. No cat who came here ever returned. In that respect, he’d been right about the river.

He could die here… with all the depraved characters sent to this place, all that his family might ever see again were his bones, scattered across that tiny little creek…

No.  No, he would not die here. If not by the river, he had to get home somehow. He turned back to the three queens—the three natives, rangy and thin, fragile skeletons with fur stretched across them—and said, “I need you to help me get back.”

Thalia’s green eyes widened as if in alarm. "Back?“

"Back home, back to Earth! I need you to help me find the way out of here!”

“Kit… I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her voice was brusque and unsympathetic, unwilling to suffer some stupid foreigner who’d washed up in her home. "I don’t know any way out of here. I’ve lived here all my life, and believe me, if I’d known about another place I could go, I would go there. All of us would.“

That wasn’t good enough. "I can’t be stuck here. I have to get back to my family! They need me– they can’t get on without me!”

“What do you expect me to do? I can’t send you back the way you came here. I don’t even know where you really came from or how you got here in the first place!”

“There was…” He looked hopelessly back at that little bitty stream, seeming to shrink as he looked at it. His resolve chipped away at the edges as his argument died. “There was a river…” he finished lamely.

Thalia just shook her head. “I don’t know anything about Earth rivers, kit,” she replied, tone gentler now. "I don’t know what you want me to do–“

"Hey.” The calico cut across her comrade and strode right up to Theo. Compassion showed in her face, but that didn’t endear her to Theo any; he backed away as she approached. “Maybe you could stay with us for the night.”

“Calliope!” Thalia hissed before Theo could respond.

“He’s had a hard enough time already!” was the protest in response. "He’s tired, he’s a long way from home, and he’s probably hungry. And if he’s going to try to get back to wherever it is he came from, he’s going to need to rest.“

"Calliope.”  Thalia gave her a pointed look and lowered her voice. "He’s just gonna be another mouth to feed, and I can’t feed him the way I’ve been feeding you. What’s he gonna think of us?“

Once again, before Theo could speak and point out that he was still there and listening to every word they said, a smaller voice behind them said, "He can have my food.”

Calliope and Thalia turned to the little lilac kitten, and the former immediately spoke up. “No, Terpsichore– you need to keep your strength up–”

“It’s okay. I haven’t been that hungry lately. Besides, he probably eats more than me anyway.”

The two older queens’ eyes met gravely over the little one’s head, then Thalia looked back at Theo with a beleaguered sigh, as if these horrible inconveniences would never end. “This isn’t going to work, you two.”

“If you have another, better idea, I’d love to hear it,” Calliope retorted.

For the second time, the blue queen sighed. Theo couldn’t help but notice that she was only a little old than he, but age seemed to pile on her every time she spoke. For a moment, he flashed on Rhea and felt a twinge of guilt. He could hear the words “This isn’t going to work”  again under her breath before she said much louder, “All right, let’s go. Let’s see if we can find someplace warmer to stay for the night.”

Without a word, Calliope and Terpsichore closed ranks behind her and began to move on. Theo stood back and watched them go. He didn’t want anything to do with these queens, with this place. He just wanted to get home. But home was a long way away, so far he could barely even picture a distance in his mind’s eye.

He couldn’t be stuck here. To admit that he didn’t know what to do or where to go would make it true. And he couldn’t be stuck here with them. Who knew what sort of queens these were? Could he afford to trust them? Were they telling the truth?

Someplace on ahead, Thalia called up, “Hey, kit!”

“Would you stop calling me that?!” Theo snapped, more a product of his fear and nerves than actual annoyance.

“I’m sorry, I– I don’t know your name.”

“Theo.”

“Theo. Come on back with us, Theo. It’ll be okay.” But the words sounded hollow as she said them, as if even she knew what pretty lies they were. As if she knew very well that things wouldn’t be okay.

He wished with all his heart he could refuse. That he could go his own way, find his way home himself rather than stay with a cat he couldn’t trust. But at this point, it didn’t appear he had much of a choice.

The cold air nipping more shrewdly at him than ever before, Theo fell in behind Thalia.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From the same source I have not taken  
My sorrow; I could not awaken  
My heart to joy at the same tone;   
And all I loved, I loved alone.   
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn  
Of a most stormy life- was drawn  
From every depth of good and ill  
The mystery which binds me still...   
\--- Edgar Allen Poe, Alone

Sealed off from the Earth or not, no cat enters the Dimension without the Feline Guardian becoming aware of it. Back on Earth, a small golden-furred tom tossed and tuned in his sleep, his new senses clanging in his ears with a dull, persistent pain.

On Aravan, a huge white monster of a cat started instantly awake, eyes wide, unable to breathe. He, too, although not a Guardian, had felt it.

Cerdic felt water in his lungs. Yes, it was water-- an unbearable weight dragging at each of his internal organs, swelling in them, filling them to bursting. Mustn't dwell on that, the imagined pain... but why the water? Actual supplies of water were few and far between in Aravan. Perhaps if he could scent its source...

Opening his jaws wide and exposing his palate to the wind, Cerdic caught the scent. Turbid water, saturated with all manner of filth and silt and algae. Not a stream then, a river. And an unclean one at that. But there was something else... something stronger, almost pungent.

Something faintly familiar.

He probed further, inhaling every particle of air between him and this river... and reeled back in shock.

Another cat.

That was what he'd sensed-- another cat. But cats didn't come to Aravan unless sent... he supposed those days were over, weren’t they? After all, much time had passed since... but wait…

A hideous snarl, half from anger and half from fear, grew on his face, made even more hideous by the long, cruel, white fang-like teeth that cut down either side of his mouth. This could not be. He would not allow this to be. Any interference with--

Suddenly, his stomach rumbled so loudly he literally could no longer hear himself think. Cerdic rolled his eyes at the sound. Brilliant-- his stomach had become louder than his own voice. Still, it had been quite a while since he'd last eaten; perhaps he could do with some fresh prey. Of course, the quarry was different n such a starved land, but the hunt was the same. Dismissing the interloper he'd sensed until later, he stretched sensation back into his limbs and set off across the barren fields. This place wasn't exactly rich with fellow cats, but the ones he did find were succulent. Picking up a particularly delicious scent, Cerdic crouched into the grass and wove deftly through the tall stalks.

There had been a time when he could simply wave a paw or twitch his tail, and prey-- such meager fare compared to now, though-- would come soaring toward him, their spines already cracked like nutshells. But not so now. Not that his own strength and cunning didn't suit him fine, but there were times when Cerdic missed those days.

The days when he'd lived on Earth. The days when he'd almost been Feline Guardian. When he had a friend he depended on, a master he loved, a tribe to whom he was eager to prove himself before it had all been taken away. Deprived of home, family, he couldn't remember what all, it had been so long ago.

They said absence makes the heart grow fonder. For Cerdic, this couldn't have been more untrue with each turn of the sun. At first he’d mourned, he’d cried bitterly for his home… but for what, really? He'd been betrayed. He'd been abandoned. It had only been a matter of time, if he was honest with himself—they had never trusted him, despite all of his efforts to change their minds. No sadness or longing had ever grown in him for so long over those things once he realized that—only bitterness. His blood became gall, and absence made him forgetful. Family, home, all those insignificant things had become a distant dream. The thought of Earth was like a canker, gnawing at him no matter how much he tried to rid himself of it. Only his friend and old master remained in his memory. And he felt no warmer toward them either.

Now Dionysus was dead. Cerdic had sensed that several nights ago. He supposed he should be sad, but the feeling wouldn’t come. Good riddance to the old fool. And no doubt Samara had taken his place. He'd bring ruin on the tribe, the vacillating weakling. Or perhaps he could do worse and bring the tribe out of its comfortable ignorance. He fairly chuckled at the thought-- they'd all go mad for that.

As for Cerdic? He had been quite forgotten on Earth. Nothing but a ghost story to scare kittens into obedience.

But more fool them, for they'd given him a gift instead. In losing his home, he'd gained this wild country. In losing his throne, he'd earned a new one. This land was his. All of the trees, the grass, the wide plains, the thirsty brooks, the yawning gorges-- they all belonged to those who knew them best. And Cerdic knew them better than anyone. Cerdic was Guardian here, a Guardian beholden to no one, free from rituals and congregations and nonsense like that. He ruled by blood. That was the master he served now, a far more commanding one than Dionysus had ever been. Hunger ruled with wide needle claws and unforgiving jaws, and all of Aravan bowed before it.

And he would rule again. Oh, yes-- he would make foes and friends alike tremble. They would cry for what had been done to him… and what he would do.

At last, he spotted his quarry. A grey tabby tom crawling onto a high rock where he then flopped down to sun himself. Stupid old thing—no sun could be seen through these blasted clouds, as Cerdic had long ago discovered. He crept a little closer and surveyed his dinner. A bit thin, perhaps; those ribs would be an interesting chew. And such coarse fur... maybe he'd better skin this one first. Most amusing was the fraying blue cord around its neck—one of the Two-Legged Folk’s markers. Explained why it was so ancient, at least. Pets didn’t find a very warm reception in the wilds, on Earth or Aravan.

Another growl from his insistent stomach stopped his thoughts again. He didn't have time to think-- he must act. Coiling the muscles in his back legs, he allowed that energy to reach its summit until it became painful, until they screamed for release and he denied them...

Then he pounced.

The old tom hadn't even raised its eyes when the enormous weight crashed into it, sending them both tumbling off the rock. Its wits returned, the tom tried to scamper away, but Cerdic trapped it facedown on the cracked ground, paws over its chest. Yes, he thought, I'll have to mind the bones on this one. Wouldn't want to crack my teeth. 

"Sabreteeth..."  it croaked in terror. A Two-Legged Folk word, one that sounded ridiculous to anyone else.

Cerdic smiled, a wicked leer. "Yes," he replied, baring them. "Sabreteeth."

"Please... please, sir... my mate, my kits... I beg of you, please!” 

"No, don't struggle," Cerdic said, and snapped its neck. There was the most fleeting sound of a final gasp and death rattle before the tom's head lolled back and a rush of crimson coated Cerdic's tongue. So intoxicating was the taste and scent that Cerdic almost lost his senses; his heart almost stopped and his nose twitched with pleasure.

Yes. The blood. His meat and prey. No cat on Earth or anywhere could take that from him. And he suspected no cat would begrudge him this kill. Without bothering to drag it to the safety of the undergrowth, Cerdic sat and indulged in the new meat, savoring every bite.

After he'd lapped up the last of the juices from the succulent meat, he registered another scent. That of fear. The word the tom had said in recognition of the one who would kill him. Sabreteeth. Cerdic smiled-- he liked that very much. So his legend had spread to this land, too, even with such laughable words. Even the pets were talking about him on Earth… how cute. Blood had become his water, fear his meat now. Aravan was liquid in his paw... or so it would be soon enough...

All of a sudden, a new sensation struck him like a blow to the head. And in a way, it was-- a ringing demand in both ears, whining like a mosquito, insisting it have his undivided attention. Cerdic growled irritably and was about to wave it away...

When he remembered there was only one thing that would make such a demand of him.

Well, first of all, it was about time.

Second of all, he hadn't a moment to lose. He needed to find a reflective surface; a smooth stone or crystal rockbed would do nicely. He quickly glanced about him for anything he could use-- ah. Well, wasn’t he lucky—a sheet of quartz on the very precipice of the stone he sat on, obscured by the dirt and grime. Perfect. Coming to sit before it and swiping a paw over it to clean it, Cerdic willed that sensation he had felt into the reflection. Willed it manifest, to look him in the eye as a living being, tell him what it will...

Sure enough, it did. The face of a muscular orange tabby cat with short-cropped whiskers appeared in the quartz and gave a terse incline of his huge head. "Cerdic."

"Ah." Cerdic smiled. "At last I hear from you."

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, sir. But I'm ready now."

"Has there been a decision yet?"

"No, he's still searching, sir."

Cerdic scoffed. How like Samara to take so long to make up his mind. "Typical," he muttered under his breath before addressing the cat once more. "I trust you know what to do, then?"

"Yes, sir. I am ready, sir."

"Yes. Yes, you are." Cerdic's smile broadened. Their time was near. He would tell him about the other cat he'd sensed ; that would add to his resolve. It would anger him as it had Cerdic, make him thirst for the deed to be done. "You are ready. Now listen."

They were so close. So close Cerdic could taste it, and it was as strong and heady as the blood. As his true master’s touch upon his fur, anointing him.

He had won Aravan through fear... and now with this disciple's help, now he would win back Earth.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Lady Cora," he said, "sometimes one has to do things which   
are impalatable. When great issues are involved, one can't simply   
toy with the situation with silk gloves. No. We are making   
history."   
\--- Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan 

“I’m an excellent hunter, and I have five sisters, so I’m used to leading… and…”

“Go on.”

“I’m sorry, I’m just…” The young cream-colored queen blushed violently at the floor of the cavern. “I’m getting flustered…”

Samara smiled kindly. “You’re perfectly fine, dear.” Several nights had past since Dionysus’ death and Samara had taken the throne. Several nights since Lakshmi’s cryptic message about the One who would succeed him. So very many nights of varying amounts of sleep as he worried. At first, he’d had absolute confidence in that message. He had to– it was all he could trust. His friend, his master’s friend, wouldn’t lie to him. And so he waited. He didn’t know quite what he was expecting– some cloud of magic blowing in the wind that would dissipate to reveal a strong young tom or fiery queen. He didn’t have the energy to think, so deeply he’d wallowed in grief and confusion.

Meanwhile, the tribe– his tribe now– needed him. It occurred to him after his third day of waiting for a miracle that he couldn’t just sit idle. There were kittens to feed, invalids to heal, dead to carry up the hills so they might reunite with the earth and night air with quiet honor. Throwing himself into his duties as Guardian had proved therapeutic, and he discovered he loved talking to the younger ones in the tribe. In many ways, they reminded him of himself at a more innocent, stress-less time.

The answer he’d stopped looking for came to him, oddly enough, in a dream. Perhaps finding the One was simply a process of trial and error—his ancestors’ test of character for him and that wonderful, anonymous cat. Perhaps the past Guardians had been watching over him all this time, attempting to guide him if he would only stop wallowing in his self-pity. And seemingly omniscient as they were, might have noticed how much the little ones had come to mean to him. The One, he realized, might be waiting among them; no sooner had Samara realized this than he began to talk with new zeal, probing his young friends for their hopes, their dreams, their strengths and weaknesses and values. Before long, they caught on to his intent and formed ever-growing queues around his cavern, twitching with the excitement of possibly becoming apprentice to the Feline Guardian. Now, he was talking to Diana, a delightful and lively, if a bit feather-brained, young queen while her family waited outside.

“It’s just, I’ve been waiting to talk to you for so long.” Diana fixed him with a suddenly grave pair of brown eyes, and Samara at once felt himself stifle a fidget where he sat– a look like that never boded well. "Is it true you’re sending cats through the Dimension?“

And there it was. The question he’d heard a thousand times in the past week. He kept his voice even as he replied, "I hope to do so eventually, yes.” OF course, the moment word of that had gotten around the tribe, the backlash had been almost ridiculous. Every morning and evening, in addition to the young queues, there would be complaints lining up at the entrance to his cavern (it was almost as if those cats had to renew their energy during the day before coming back to accost him), dozens upon dozens of cats demanding to know who he thought he was, why he was putting tribe members in danger, didn’t he care about them, didn’t he know what sort of low-lifes were waiting for these poor kittens there, etcetera etcetera. Each time he tried to come up with a respectable answer, and quite frankly, the accusations of being uncaring and cruel both weighed heavily and grated on him. Couldn’t they see he didn’t want to do this either? That he knew all too well the risks they’d be up against? But he had to. They didn’t understand what was expected of him, the legacy he had to live up to. What had been demanded of him by Guardians past. Of course, Samara knew he was a fool and that the tribe agreed. He’d long accepted the fact that he would never be a great Guardian, much less one of the greats like Dionysus. And in his heart of hearts, he didn’t want to be.

Diana lowered her eyes again with a frown, tracing a pattern in the floor with her claws. "I know you’re doing what you think is right, but… well, you’ve heard the rumors about that place.“ With a shudder, she added, "I don’t think I’d feel safe there.”

“Oh, no, I understand,” was Samara’s honest answer. After all, if not for one of his fellow tribe leaders, he would never have implemented this trial. "I would never dream of–“

He never got to finish his sentence. From somewhere behind the multicolored clump that was Diana’s waiting family came a loud cry of "Excuse me!” 

Samara and Diana raised their heads just in time to see a large ginger tomcat stumble out of the trees and edge past each of Diana’s little sisters, ignoring their indignant cries. “Excuse me,” he muttered in a vaguely foreign accent, “please, I have to get through it’s very important.” When he finally broke front, he raised a pair of wild amber eyes at Samara, as though he’d crossed half the Earth to reach him. "I need to speak to the Feline Guardian.“

Oh, perfect. Another complaint. Samara drew himself up, tucked his tail neatly around his paws, and said coolly, "You’re addressing him. What is it?”

“Your Honor, I need to speak to you right away, it’s urgent–”

“I’m in the middle of an audience, so I’m afraid you’ll just have to–”

“No!” the tom insisted. "You don’t understand, it’s–“ He took a few steps closer, leaned forward as far as he could without toppling over, and hissed urgently, "It’s about the Dimension!”

Something in his words made Samara’s blood run cold. Hiding his sudden consternation, he levelled a narrowed-eyed stare at the cat and murmured, “What?”

The ginger tom nodded, a motion like a small seizure. "Yes, Your Honor. It’s about the Dimension, and it can’t wait, please!“

Something about this whole thing felt wrong. Gooseflesh sprang over Samara’s back for no reason. What was he afraid of? This was simply another rabble rouser, trying to spread panic instead of anger. But that wasn’t right either– there was no discernible lie in this tom’s eyes. This wasn’t a complaint– it was a warning of something terrible known only to this strange cat. Something wrong.

It was with great effort that he turned back to Diana, feeling more horrible than he had in days. The thought of disappointing her was awful, but… "I—I’m so sorry to–”

“It’s fine, honestly,” Diana responded, but her eyes turned over-bright and dropped back to the floor. A wave of guilt washed over Samara.

“Maybe we could continue this some other–” he started to suggest.

“Actually, I think it’s better that I just leave.” She sat up, gave her dusty paws a few licks, and offered him a wan smile. “Thank you for your time, Your Honor.”

“Oh, no, please do– do come back whenever you can find–”

Too late. At a whispered word to her mother outside, Diana had already stood and left without looking back. Samara stared after her bleakly before turning back to the tom with a rising, inordinate anger. How dare he?

“I– I wanted to–”

“Not here,” Samara snapped and got to his feet. Throwing the tom a look over his shoulder, he walked deeper into the cavern’s interior, stopping once to make sure he was following, until the light from outside was no longer visible. The multicolored gem shards glimmered darkly above them, casting green and purple shadows on their fur. Once inside, the ginger tom uneasily wandered across the rugged floor while Samara cast one last look outside. He knew no one was there; these past weeks had made him paranoid.

The tom looked that way as well and frowned. "There’s no one here but us, Your Honor.“

"I know. Force of habit. Now.” Samara turned to face him. "What’s your name?“

"Beowulf, Your Honor.” His voice was clipped and prim and somewhat singsong. Samara wondered absently how he had found this tribe and why he had come all this way.

“What was so important, Beowulf, that you had to interrupt?”

“Well, I wanted to tell you about something… something I think I’ve known for a while. I know it’s the Guardian’s job to guard the ways to the Dimension– keep an eye on it, guard against accidents, that sort of thing.” He lifted the end of the sentence like a question and gave the other tom a searching look.

It was another one of those looks that you couldn’t help cringing under, but Samara forced himself to meet it. "Yes…“

"Well, recently… no offense meant, of course… but… I don’t think you’ve been keeping as close an eye as you should.”

Samara’s eyes widened at the accusation. "What are you saying?“

"I’m saying…” Here Beowulf hesitated more than ever, blinking rapidly as if his revelation might make him physically sick. “I’m saying there’s…” He swallowed, forcing something horrible down his throat.

Forcing himself to be patient, Samara’s only response was “Well?”

“There’s…” Another swallow. "There’s s-someone there, Your Honor.“

"Someone there?” He could only repeat them, aware of how pathetically weak his voice sounded. He couldn’t be played as a fool. This couldn’t be a joke. This was no joking matter.

Beowulf nodded. “I mean one of our cats– our tribe, your subjects! – he’s fallen through, wandered in, I’m not sure how it all works.”

“Then how could you know?” the Guardian asked sharply.

“I had a dream, Your Honor. And I saw him. 

“Only the Feline Guardian has dreams like that—you couldn’t have possibly—”

“Don’t all cats have a bit of that left in them, Your Honor? At least that’s what the stories all say. The cat I saw, he was lost on the plains there, trying to get back, but he couldn’t find a way. He needed help. I think he’s still there.”

“How?” 

Beowulf’s eyes were earnest as they met Samara’s. “Can’t you feel it? I mean, part of us, our world, is there, and it… it feels wrong. The balance between us… it’s all wrong.”

There was a long moment of hesitation as Samara could only stare in bewilderment before he tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and let his jaw drift open. He’d only done this once before, and only here on Earth. To reach through to Aravan was a feat only Dionysus seemed capable of. Nevertheless… a quick taste of Earthbound air gave him a point of reference before he forced himself to push beyond. Muscling his way past the boundaries of this world and prodding gently into the next. Exposing his mind to the openness there, he searched, seeking the new scents, the new tastes, the new textures of the land and air… anything that all that would help him see…

And see he did. And what he saw appalled him. He would focus on certain strains and feel as though he were being tossed by some violent storm. The effort of withdrawing was painful; his head swum, and sour rose to his throat, so he was stuck in that black current… occasionally seeing light, white, some pale yellows, a rare flash of green…

“I know it sounds mad,” Beowulf was saying presently somewhere far away, “and I know it’s only a dream, but… But I saw this cat, and I just can’t help but… You have to believe me.”

Returning to the here and now, Samara realized he was still shaking. Forcing his tremors down and his unsteady voice to a familiar volume (he would never stop having to hide these things from others, it seemed), he took a breath and addressed the ginger tom. “Supposing I do, and I have lost one of my cats this way, what do you suggest I do? I can’t go after him myself, I’d be abandoning the tribe.”

“But you–”

“Don’t you dare accuse me of not caring,” Samara snapped. He knew was being sharp and felt a stab of regret for it, but knew better than to show it. "I would give my life for anyone in this tribe, but I will not sacrifice their safety by leaving them to search for one cat!“

"Well, then I was wondering… if it’s not too bold, Your Honor… if I…” He raised his eyes with an expression of cautious hope. “If I might go?”

Ah. So that was it. "You realize you may not return? Travels between worlds is nothing to take lightly.“

"I’m aware of that, Your Honor. But at-at least I might get him home safe. And perhaps, of I do return, I might… I might be worthy to-to be your apprentice.” Again he lifted the end of the sentence as if wondering if it was allowed.

Samara’s tail lashed slowly across the floor. In the one paw, he still hadn’t spoken to all the other young cats waiting for him outside… perhaps one of them showed greater promise as a future leader. And with Beowulf’s nerves, Samara honestly pitied him… there was already one anxious wreck ruling a tribe. But in the other paw… Beowulf had also said he had dreams. The same revelatory dreams every Guardian had. That couldn’t be discounted. Perhaps it was worth a chance…

“Tell me about the Dimension, Beowulf?”

The tom stared at him, bewildered. “Your Honor?”

“I want you to tell me what you will be facing there—what you know of it. I want to know that you understand the risks. Tell me about where you’re going.”

“A-All right.” Beowulf’s tail came to drape delicately over his front feet, as if he were a kitten reciting a story his mother had told him. “It—I know that it used to be open for cats to travel between ours and their world. Plenty of prey, everyone free to come and go as they please… but then… then cats started to go there to escape being punished for their crimes. So it turned into a sort of prison where the tribes sent rule-breakers… and then your—your master decreed that was too cruel and ordered the Dimension sealed away to everyone. No one’s been in or—or out of there in… well, probably as many sun-turns as you’ve been alive. No offense, Your Honor,” he added hurriedly.

Samara nodded along with each point of the history. Every cat in his tribe had been told the same story—he was sure even kittens knew it. “And yet you still want to be let in.”

“Yes, Your Honor. To save that poor cat, you understand. And… well, no one’s been there in so long, it must be so different now… I’d like to see it. Explore a bit, if I can.”

“You understand you won’t be going there on a hunt for pleasure. And I’m not sending cats there because I have nothing better to do. The Dimension is an endurance test of harshness and savagery, and I need you to recognize what that means. For your own sake.”

“Yes, I—I understand, Your Honor. I really do. And… I do still want to go.”

For a moment, another callous thought floated through Samara’s mind—you could have just come to me before instead of waiting for some catastrophe.  But that wasn’t fair of him. It was neither of their faults. He had to believe the best of this cat, never mind his own misgivings. It was safer than letting one of his poor cats die in a strange wilderness. “You are willing to pass through, then, regardless of the danger?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“You truly want this?”

“Yes, Your Honor.” For the first time since he’d appeared, Beowulf’s voice was unwavering.

That was all Samara wanted to hear. "Very well. Please follow me.“ Crooking the tip of his tail toward Beowulf as he stood, he led them along another corridor of the cavern. Far away from the crowd outside, it twisted and turned in the narrow dark until it opened up again at the bank of the river. No doubt this entrance had been used during those days when exile was still common, before Dionysus outlawed it. Samara wondered if he should feel honored or horrified that he would be the first to use it in so long. Mere inches away, the twin currents of the river rolled along without a care in the world.

"Er… Your Honor, are you sure it–”

“It’s perfectly safe, but please stay back.” Sitting back on his haunches and raising his eyes to the heavens, Samara raised one paw and sowed it outward, stroking the air, feeling every grain of sediment in every spray of the river. Then raised the other paw. The air shimmered beneath it. Beyond him, the river roared deep within itself, a crouching beast waiting to spring forth. He willed to move, to flow, to rush up onto the banks, and it obeyed… further… further…

“Please,” came Beowulf’s voice beside him, “Your Honor–”

“Step directly onto the bank,” Samara instructed him.

“But–”

“Now.” 

As Beowulf tremulously did as he was told, Samara felt the waves reach a crest. So close now… his paws moved faster, following the rhythm of the river… forward, back, forward, back, a sort of dance in increasing tempo. It rumbled for release, gathering its strength, preparing to leap. The air was thick with moisture… the river begged to be let go…

Now.

As though he’d suddenly been struck by lightning, Samara rose to his hind legs and raised his forepaws. A tidal wave taller than the both of them leaped skyward and hung like a churning blue curtain over Beowulf’s head. He jumped backward with a yelp, tail matted in fear, but Samara dared not break the spell– he must continue to face the wave.

“This is your portal, Beowulf.” Samara could hear his words carry over the water and was proud of it. "I shall contact you in two day’s time. If I hear or sense nothing, I will send another cat in your place and will not be able to search for you any further. Do you understand?“

"I do!” shouted Beowulf in response, his words not carrying as well.

“Go, now. The portal will not stay open much longer.”

The wave seemed to agree, growing angrily in stature, waiting to collapse over the land. Beowulf was barely in position beneath it and managed to turn and give the Guardian a wan, but determined smile before he was engulfed by water. Another moment as the rapids crashed against their banks, there was a spray that drenched Samara from head to toe and he was gone.

When the waves receded, Samara sank back to the ground with a sigh and set to work shaking out and drying his fur. There. Done. That was that. He’d made a decision. Whether Beowulf was the One had yet to be seen, but he had to be willing to take chances. This chance would affect the whole of his tribe– maybe even the entire world of Felines– for better or worse. This chance would make or break him as Guardian– either endear him to his cats for adopting such a strong leader-in-training or vilify him as a fool. Well… more of a fool than he already was.

All he could do now was wait. And hope.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All these, however, were mere terrors of the  
night, phantoms of the mind that walk in darkness.  
\--- Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Theo refused to close his eyes that night. The night air hung over him in a humid, oppressive, stale-smelling blanket, weighing heavily down on his eyelids, but he would not let them budge. If he closed his eyes, he would fall asleep. If he fell asleep... no. No, he would not fall asleep. He could not stay here for another moment.

"Theo?"

The voice made him jump, and he convulsively thrashed on the ground in startlement, looking around wildly, before sitting up to see the little lilac kitten (whose name escaped him at the moment) sitting there. "Sorry, I-I didn't--" He quickly licked the dry grass out from under his neck. "You scared me."

"Oh." If this came as a surprise to her or if she were sorry at all, she didn't show it. She just blinked in the most innocent way. "But that is your name, right? Theo?"

"Yeah. Hey, where are your..." He didn't know quite what to call them-- sisters? Friends? Aunts? "Where are the other two?" That was neutral enough.

"They went to go find grass for Calliope's nest," the kitten replied. "She doesn't like sleeping on rock—it hurts her neck."

"Ah." Theo tried to look too sleepy to care and carefully rolled over onto his other side, but was promptly jabbed by a sharp pebble in his side. The pain seemed to focus all his anxiety into that spot on his side, and suddenly his breath caught. Aravan had become real enough to prick him and draw blood... it wasn't a nightmare... he had to escape.

The kitten seemed to notice and asked in a soft, frank voice, "Are you scared, Theo?"

The reflex answer would have been no , of course not, why would he be scared, what a stupid idea. But these words sputtered uselessly on his tongue in the presence of this ingenuous young queen. She'd been nothing but civil this entire time, not bleak and condescending like the others. She might understand-- he might be able to tell her. "Listen... Terpsichore." Yes, that was her name. "You have to help me. I'm only here by accident, and this place is..." Huge, empty, terrifying, full of strangers, full of cats who probably want to hurt me just for being here … words failed him to truly describe it, so he plowed right on. "I don't belong here. I have to get back home-- I have a mother and two sisters who--"

"Why can't you stay here?" she asked inquired innocently. "They won't miss you."

"Yes, they will!" What would ever make her think such a thing? Maybe he was wrong—clearly she didn't  understand. "They need me every day, and I can't just abandon them! If there's any way you can help me--"

He cut off on purpose so he might gain a response, but none came. Terpsichore just stared up at the sky, eyes glazed over slightly, searching for something that wasn't there… that couldn’t be there. Theo didn’t understand, and quite frankly he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to understand anything about this place.

"You know what... fine." He made no effort to keep his irritation out of his voice. "If you can't help me, or you don't want to help me or whatever, it's fine. I'll just... find a way myself." Of course, he didn't know who he was trying to fool-- he'd probably last all of five minutes out there-- but he wasn't about to let it on. He stood and stretched his paws and started to walk away to show he meant business--

"Actually, can I show you something?"

It was such an abrupt change of subject that Theo couldn't help but take notice. The sky above them was so murkily dark, almost brown in its blackness, that the idea of there being stars or a moon was inconceivable to him. More surprising yet was that there were-- a full orange moon hanging languidly in the sable sky, surrounded by tiny pinpricks of light. The stars scattered haphazardly in no particular order across their backdrop except for one long line of shimmering white that split it clean in two. Theo had never seen such stars, and the sight dazzled him so that he was momentarily lost for words.

"You see that line of stars there?" Terpsichore asked softly, pointing with the brush of her tail.

Theo had no reply but to stare at this new sky. It's different here than… 

He must have said this out loud because Terpsichore looked at him askance. "What?"

"Nothing. What about them?" Theo quickly recovered.

"It's called Juno's Tail," she continued in a whisper. "We named it after the first Earth-cat to ever come here."

The name sounded vaguely familiar, but that wasn’t what caught Theo’s attention in the moment. "So... she made her way out?"

"Mmm-hmm. And each of those stars is a pawstep she took from one end of Aravan to the other. We used to hear that story when we were kits… did they ever tell you?"

"Maybe—I can’t remember. But you’re—you’re saying that... if I follow it," Theo mused aloud, a tiny niggling of hope—hope, for the first time since he'd come here—flaring up inside him, "I can get to the other side and find my way home?"

"I think so. That’s what the story used to say, anyway." 

“What’s on the other side of… of Aravan?”

“Apparently it’s like a doorway,” Terpsichore said, a sort of dreaminess in her voice. “Like… you know how the sun comes over the hill in the morning? The story said the sun opened up in front of her, and there was a path of stars to lead her back… like she was walking through the sky.”

A path of stars… that Theo did remember. “There’s a story on Earth about a cat who found a place like that, but I can’t remember her name… it was about the first Feline Guardian.”

“Really?” At first, Terpsichore looked fascinated, but the look quickly faded into something much more subdued. “Maybe that’s how she made it out. Aren’t the Guardians supposed to have special powers?”

“Yeah…” Very briefly, Theo had to wonder about this kitten. How she knew about the Feline Guardian if she’d grown up in the Dimension long after it was sealed away… and then there were those ears of hers. Terpsichore had tiny little nubs for ears, the tips folded over until they sat in perfect upside-down triangles over the top of her head. Didn’t only pet cats have ears like that? Something about this whole thing smelled like fish… but he couldn’t dwell on it. He had a way home. She was offering him a way to escape. He had to focus on that—nothing else mattered.

“…I mean, I’m not the Feline Guardian or anything… but has anybody ever gotten clear to the other side of—of Aravan before since?”

“Not that I’ve heard of. There are cats who live there, I think, but no one’s ever walked all the way across… besides Juno, anyway.”

“So there’s still a chance that it might still… open up for me, right?” It had to. Juno, legend even though she was, was just out for an explore. Theo was trying to get home to his family. He wanted it more than any cat ever had, and that had  to count for something. There had to be that bit of magic left in the world for ordinary cats who didn’t rule over the entire Feline world to use. There used to be, he knew, according to other stories. If cats were brave and true… he could be brave and true. For Rhea and his sisters. It was his only hope.

“Maybe.” And she actually smiled, leaning forward conspiratorially. "And you'd better go soon if you wanna make it."

His concerns evaporating like morning dew, Theo felt light-- he actually felt light and happy. He could have licked Terpsichore from top to bottom. There was a way out, a way home. As he got to his feet and took a few steps out of the shadow, he cast a triumphant glance back at the empty spaces Thalia and Calliope would soon occupy. Thought you could keep here, huh? Well, watch me!  With one last grateful look at Terpsichore, he took another step.

He would go. This was his way home. I'm coming, Mom, Rhodie, Opie. I'm coming! 

And he went.

For a forest entirely composed of bare branches and the odd shivering cluster of dead leaves, the cover was excellent. Too excellent for Theo's liking. Light fell in the thinnest slivers upon the ground like the scrapes of claws; it was only by staring intently through these slivers that he could follow Juno's Tail. Except for the sound of his own feet and heart, it was completely silent. No wind tussled the leaves, no odd creature scampered through the grass. Utter darkness and solitude. Theo wondered how many cats actually lived in this forsaken place; it wouldn't surprise him the three he'd already met were the only ones...

He was immediately proven wrong. A sudden rustle in the bushes broke the silence. Theo wheeled around, the fur on the back of his neck standing on end. He dared not make any further sound lest he be heard. A sudden image of some weather-ravaged beast plaguing his steps flashed through his mind's eye. Opening his jaws the tiniest bit, Theo tried to find the thing's scent in the air-- cat, dog, rabbit, creature, whatever. No one. He was alone in the night in a dead forest in another world. Small comfort, but at least he could continue. Squinting up through the tiny cracks at the stars, he took a few more steps.

Whiskers.  Theo stopped dead. He could feel whiskers  on his back. Frail whiskers, like very thin weeds. And he could just barely hear a slow rattling breath. The beast reappeared in his mind's eye and he seized up, certain it could hear his heart pounding against his rib cage...

Then came the voice.

"Hey."

Mind blank with terror, all reflex and no thought, Theo leaped a foot in the air and landed, of all places, on his face. It was then that his reason returned. Classy, Theo. 

Whoever it was didn't seem to notice or mind. "Are you lost, kit?" The voice was hoarse and dry, yet very female.

Oh , how he was sick of being called kit! He violently expelled a clump of grass from his mouth and spat, "No, I'm not. I know perfectly well where I am."

"No need to be sarcastic-- are you lost or not?"

"…Yes."

There was an audible tsk tsk noise from the queen's tongue. "It's a bad thing to be lost in these woods."

"Why?"

"Cerdic lives here." And without further ado, she seized him by the scruff of the neck and pulled him along the forest floor.

Once Theo got over the shock of being dragged, he tried to look up into the face of his... well, maybe guide was stretching it a bit, since he got the feeling she wasn't doing this willingly. She reminded him more of the time Rhodie and Opie were delegated to look after Europa’s kits after she… well… and Rhodie spent most of the time roughly hauling them from place to place while she hunted for herself. Her face was completely obscured by shadow, and not a single leak of moonlight from between tree branches fell across her or the ground around her. It was almost as though she repelled the light. Still beats some beast.  "Who are you?"

"None of your business," was her terse reply.

All right, then. "Who's Cerdic?"

"How do you--" Then she gave a derisive laugh. "Oh, that's right. You're the one who washed in."

"How do you know about me?"

"Oh, come on, kit--"

"Theo." 

"Theo. There're so little cats here, I'm surprised we haven't all died out. It's impossible to keep secrets—everyone in Aravan'll know by sundown." She cleared her throat, a rasping, guttural sound. "Cerdic's a monster."

Theo frowned. "What makes--" He winced suddenly as the heels of his hind legs scraped over a patch of rocks. "What makes you think that?"

"I don't think, Theo-- I know.  He's insane. He thinks he rules this place and can make whoever so much as looks at him obey him. And if you get in his way, he kills you. Won't even think about it, just--" She made a grotesque noise like blood gushing out of a throat. Theo at once felt very aware of his own as cold trickled down his spine.

“And that's not even it," she continued grimly. "If you're really unlucky--" This time, the sound was even more grotesque: a loud obscene slurp of relish.

Theo felt his stomach fall around his knees. "He--"

He felt her head bobbing up and down. "Yep. All the time."

Bile rose in the back of his mouth. "Why?!"

He could hear the fur on her shoulders ruffle as she shrugged. "No prey. Not even a bird. It's pretty much law here-- you either make do or you starve."

"I know, but other cats?"  He flashed on Calliope and Thalia’s conversation when he first came to in Aravan and almost gagged. If this Cerdic was a monster, what did that make them?

Another shrug. "Meat's meat. And who's telling us we can't?" There was a light jolt as she jumped over a tiny ravine, Theo lurching uncomfortably along. "The only difference is that he does it for fun."

"Fun?"  Now he was feeling faint. But if little Terpsichore knew about the Feline Guardian… did other cats here know, too? Or had they all just decided not to answer to him?

"Mm-hm. We do it to survive, to have something to eat for the day. We don't enjoy it." Her voice took on a thick coat of disgust at the word. "He gets off on it, taking bites out of moggies like us."

"Don't call yourself that," Theo blurted out, cringing at the very derogatory epithet for an inferior cat.

"Why not?" she demanded with a short, harsh laugh. "Moggie and proud of it. Better a moggie than one of you Earth softpaws."

"Hey!"  Theo's fur bristled in outrage. Inferior was one thing, but to call any cat of the wild, Earthbound or otherwise, cowardly and clawless was the worst of insults.

"Oh, don't try to deny it," the queen sneered coldly in response. "Look at you, all plump and sleek and bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. How much do you eat there-- two, three meals a day? Nice fat squirrel?" She scoffed loudly. "Welcome to our world, Theo. It's nothing like yours."

“What about the Feline Guardian? You—” this time it was a small fallen tree she jumped over, and Theo felt his back legs clatter over it—“you know who he is—”

“The Feline Guardian knows we’re moggies, too. He’s the one who made  us like this. He knew what a nightmare this place is, and he decided we deserve it because we had minds of our own. Sorry if none of us really care about what he says. Like I said, we’re nothing like your world.”

"That's why I'm trying to get out," Theo muttered under his breath, not caring if she heard.

She did and gave another little snicker. "Good luck with that."

It felt like several eternities back-to-back before finally— finally! —Theo saw more than just a sliver of light. He saw the orange moon again, fixed in an eternal staring contest with the land, providing him enough for his eyes to readjust as the queen dragged him back out. As he landed, Theo tried once more to get a good look at her face. But she was still too deep in the darkness.

"Don't let me catch you here again, Theo," she said harshly as she turned away. "Bye."

"Wait!" Theo cried after her before he could stop himself.

But she was gone.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "It's the place that worries you," said Hazel.   
"I don't like it myself, but it won't go on forever."   
\--- Richard Adams, Watership Down 

In Theo's dreams that night, the beast he'd imagined previously gained a face. In one of them, he was racing through a dark, dense, green jungle, chasing after a faceless stranger. He tried yelling out and grabbing the stranger's tail in his teeth, but to no avail. Then, suddenly, it turned to reveal the most hideous face Theo had ever seen. A bright red light shone out of empty eye sockets, and firefly light glinted off its long, cruel fangs. He remembered... Cerdic ... he screamed as the cat lunged...

Morning came far too early than it ever should. Theo felt as though he had scarcely fallen asleep when the white-hot sun was suddenly searing into his eyelids and the dry wind was howling in his ears. When he rolled over onto his feet, he found a thick coat of dried mud on his haunches at set about licking it off at once. His mind seemed to be filled with sparrow down, top to bottom, fuzzy and unclear. And in the very back of it, the tireless part that refused to shut up even in his sleep, was last night-- the strange queen. Who was she, he wondered? And who was Cerdic? And if he was so terrible, why was this the first time he'd heard the name? Did he even exist? Surely a crazed cat-killing freak in the middle of a place like this would be no secret. Why hadn't Terpsichore mentioned him? Or any of the others, for that matter? Oh, he'd kill them if they'd "forgotten" to say anything... provided he ever saw them again...

Get a grip, Theo!  he scolded himself. You can't spend all your time thinking about them… or her… or whoever. If you ever want to get home, you have to focus.  That decided, he licked the last flakes of mud from his pelt and looked skyward for his way home.

Unfortunately, the sun was complicating things by doing what it always did—blocking out the stars. Funny how he only noticed when it mattered. Then again... he'd been on a straight path before, hadn't he? The forest wasn't particularly twisty and turny, and the worst obstacles had been a few dips in the land and fallen tree trunks from… what he could only assume were age and wear, since Aravan didn’t appear to have any weather other than beating sun thus far. If he just kept going in this same direction... he should eventually get there. How eventually he didn't know, but...

Well, Theo wasn't going to accomplish anything just sitting and thinking. The sooner he left, the sooner he'd get there. Imagining instead the joyous looks on Rhea and Opie's faces, and the remorseful one on Rhodie's, he got to his feet and walked determinedly straight ahead.

His first mistake was thinking it would be easy. After leaving the forest, the rest of Aravan stretched before him in an endless, featureless swath of dry grass and empty creek beds. So devoid of any landmarks the place was, Theo could never be sure if he was indeed walking in a straight line or wandering aimlessly in circles. And just to taunt him, it seemed, the promise of rain dropped a dark shadow on the ground and a thick cloud of humidity in the air. Theo's fur, already shaggy and thick, hung on him like some Twolegged Folk garment hung out to drip-dry. Still, he could only soldier on. His only consolation was how smooth the terrain was...

Until he came to a cliff. Hurriedly scrambling back before he could tumble headlong down the side, Theo cautiously crept to the edge and looked down. The ravine below wasn't so horribly deep-- maybe twice as tall as he was. Granted, it cut obstinately straight across his path, and the walls were jagged with partially dislodged rocks that would gouge his paws if he tried to climb. Following it would take him probably several hours off course... but right now, it was the easier option. Maybe he could just follow it until he found an eroded spot in the wall that he could leap over and go on following his straight path.

It was a long shot, but it was the only one available. Steeling himself, Theo crouched over the very brink of the cliff and leaped, the cracked yellow ground rising up to meet him. Each stone formed a winding path between the lips of the canyon, and Theo walked on.

At first, there were no crises. The walk was relatively easy, the ground was firm, and the walls blocked any wind. It was all going fairly well until the rocks began to give way for vegetation. And, typical of Aravan, not the soft, leafy kind-- the prickly, bramble-y, snag-your-fur-and-refuse-to-let-go kind. He had no choice but to delicately pick his way through and make himself as small as possible past the sharp passageways between bushes. A point came when he actually missed the timid little kitten who'd shown him Juno's Tail. She would have made an excellent guide through this place. He even missed last night's strange queen, though he suspected Terpsichore might be better company-- at least she'd been nice--

It was then that a bush of brambles, taking advantage of his distraction, grabbed firmly onto his left hind foot. Theo was pulled harshly to a stop mid-stride. Oh! He tried to shake his foot free, but it would not budge. Fantastic. Just fantastic, he huffed mentally. Would it be too much to ask for this place to--

The sound of pawsteps above him startled him alert. A few moments' sharp listening told him it was no queen-- the tread was too slow and heavy. Momentarily forgetting the brambles, Theo fixated with every sense he could spare on those pawsteps as they grew closer and closer. Who was it? What were they doing here?

He had to take another chance. Before he could change his mind, Theo called out, "Hello?"

The pawsteps stopped dead. All went silent. Was the tom even still there? Theo briefly opened his jaws. Yes, he was still there.

"Hello?" he called again.

There was another long moment of silence before the tom tentatively edged to the brink of the wall and Theo could see a huge, tabby-colored bulk of muscle and fur peering suspiciously at him with narrow amber eyes.

Well, this could go one of two ways. "Could you help me? I'm kind of stuck."

Instead of moving or even speaking, the huge tabby tom continued to scrutinize him as if sizing him up for a fight. Theo was stricken with another vision of the horrible Cerdic and wondered if this cat was going to lunge into the ravine and rip open his throat. But no-- he just stepped back with a violent snarl and disappeared as quickly as he had appeared. Left in the silence once again, Theo wasn't sure how to feel. He hadn't been eaten, he hadn't been issued a death threat. But he had no way of knowing this tom wasn't one of Cerdic's agents off to inform him of a fresh meal he'd just stumbled across. Meanwhile, he was still stuck at the bottom of the ravine in a bramble patch.

Great,  he thought wearily. This day couldn't get much worse.

"Hey!"

He froze-- that voice was female. Oh, please, no. Please don't let it be--

A familiar ginger-and-white patched queen appeared on the ridge. Her hazel eyes glowed in the dim light as she squinted down into the ravine. "Theo?"

Oh, no. 

"Theo, is that you?"

He could only sigh in annoyance. It just got worse.

"What are you doing down here?" Calliope bounded nimbly down the lip of the canyon and skidded to a halt beside him. "Where were you going?"

"Well, I can't really go anywhere now, so..."

"Right." And she set to work untangling the vines around his leg, biting through each thorn with her teeth. "Where were you trying to get all the way out here?" she asked between bites. "Because you're a bit out of the way to be running into other cats."

I've been a bit out of the way since I got here.  But before he could say it aloud, an ill-placed bite lodged a thorn deeper into his thigh and made him gasp in pain. "Ow! Careful!"

"Sorry." She snipped very carefully through the last few brambles until sensation returned to his leg. "There." As Theo shook out his leg with the greatest feeling of relief, she fixed him again with her bright solemn eyes. "Seriously, though, Theo… where were you headed to?"

He sighed-- there would never be an end to questions in this place. The four queens he'd met already were worse than Ruby. "I was trying to get to the other side of this place."

Calliope actually cocked her head quizzically. "The other side?"

"You know... to get out. To go home."

She continued to stare confusedly at him before it seemed to dawn on her. "Oooookay." A knowing, amused smile broke across her face. "Did Terpsichore tell you how to get out?"

The word "yes" crossed his mind for a split second, and at once he felt very stupid. He'd trekked miles across a land that had been nothing but trouble for him on the advice of a kitten… and on the stupid, stupid assumption that he could accomplish the same thing the first Feline Guardian had just because he wanted it hard enough. No old story was that powerful. His justification for everything had just flown away. "Look..." He struggled to find the words to explain. "What about 'I just want to go home' is so hard to understand? I mean, in one day here, I've almost drowned, I've gotten lost twice, and I've been dragged through the forest in the dead of night by some…" Did he dare mention the strange cat who’d led him through? Best keep that to himself, he decided. "I don't know how much more I can take."

"Okay, okay. I understand." And oddly enough, she sounded as though she really did. "But... if you were trying to follow the stars, you're way off course."

Theo felt the bottom of his stomach drop to his knees. "I am?"

"Yeah. By at least half a mile."

To this, his only response was a soft "oh."  After everything else, this didn't particularly surprise him. Disturbed and upset, maybe; but surprise, no.

"Hey," Calliope put in suddenly. "You can get back on track tonight. Until then, why don't you come back and stay with us?"

Theo's eyes narrowed. "Us?"

"You know—me and Thalia and Terpsichore. We have an aunt that lives not far from here. She'll give you something to eat and a place to stay out of the rain."

"She--She won't make me eat...?" He grimaced demonstratively, hoping she'd get the message.

Thankfully, she did. "Oh, no! No, you won't have to. Aunt Min's learned to eat other stuff around here; she's weird like that."

Well, that at least was worth a thought—he'd heard enough talk of cannibalism for one day. He glanced down the winding path along the ravine and felt his feet ache. "You said not far from here?" he asked hopefully.

She shook her head. "Not at all. What do you say?"

This time, Theo's pause was much shorter. His other options had been exhausted-- there was no way he could go on today. And any place where he could at last get some proper food and a chance to rest from the elements sounded enticing. The word "Sure" was out of his mouth before he could think... well, more than twice.

And Calliope actually smiled, a gentle encouraging gesture that softened her lean, dark-mottled face. "Cool. Just follow me-- it's just a short way."

I hope so.  "Hey... what were you doing all the way out here?" he couldn't help but wonder as he fell in step beside her.

"Looking for you. Thalia was starting to worry about where you'd wandered off to—actually, we all were. And I knew you couldn’t have gone very far… but you actually got a lot farther than I thought you would," she added, her smile turning slightly teasing as she leaned against him in a tentative shoulder-check.

"Huh." Theo was a bit taken aback. Those infuriating queens had actually worried about him? He knew Terpsichore wasn't so bad, but Calliope and Thalia? Especially Thalia-- that had surprised him the most. After a moment, he wondered if maybe he'd misjudged them, and he continued to wonder as he was led out of the ravine.


End file.
